Getting started

What is a 'fact'? A 'card'? A 'model'?

See KeyTermsAndConcepts

Adding material

How can I enter accents or foreign characters?

Windows, Mac and Linux provide built-in support for other languages. There is no need to buy a different keyboard. Some flashcard programs try to save you the trouble of enabling support on your computer, and provide a clickable set of buttons for each foreign character, or provide their own conversion utilities. However, this makes input a lot slower. One person writes:

• By the way, if you're learning any foreign language with exotic characters, even just the Spanish ñ, I encourage you to look into how to efficiently type those characters. When I first started studying Japanese, I didn't know how to type Japanese characters. I'd just copy-and-paste things to make flashcards and/or communicate with people. And if I wanted to type something original, that meant painstakingly finding, then copying-and-pasting each individual character. With my U.S.-bought computer, it was kind of a pain to get Japanese IME support (and it involved borrowing a Windows XP disk from a friend since you need one to install Microsoft's Japanese IME). But it was worth it a million times over. In retrospect, I should have done that as one of my very first steps when I first set out to learn Japanese.

To learn more:

• French or other accented languages on Windows

• Japanese on Windows

• Japanese on OSX

How should I format my cards?

Ask ten people and you'll probably get 10 different answers. But there are some general concepts to keep in mind. An excellent introduction is this article on the SuperMemo site. In particular:

• Keep it simple The shorter your cards, the easier they are to review. You may be tempted to include lots of information 'just in case', but reviews will quickly become painful.

• Don't memorize without understanding If you're studying a language, try to avoid large lists of words. The best way to learn languages is in context, which means seeing those words used in a sentence. Likewise, imagine you're studying a computer course. If you attempt to memorize the mountain of acronyms, you'll find it very difficult to make progress. But if you take the time to understand the concepts behind the acronyms, learning the acronyms will become a lot easier.

When importing a text file, it says the file is not in UTF-8 format.

When a computer stores foreign characters in a file, it uses an encoding format. The most common format used these days is UTF-8. If you have download a file from the internet, or saved it using some editors, the file may not be encoded in UTF-8.

• More info

Can I add material from other flashcard programs?

Anki can import Mnemosyne databases, preserving all your scheduling information. You can also indirectly import SuperMemo databases by importing them into Mnemosyne, and then importing that Mnemosyne deck into Anki.

If your old program can export your material as a text file, Anki can import that - however you'll lose your scheduling information. After importing, you may want to open the card browser and choose Actions > Reschedule. Using that, you can give the imported material a longer interval.

Reviewing

Are there keyboard shortcuts?

Enter will show the answer. 1, 2, 3 and 4 will choose an answer button. Space will show the answer, or choose the default answer button (2 for cards you failed last time, 3 otherwise).

The reason space and enter behave differently is because some people prefer to be able to show the answer and rate a card with one key, and other people prefer to use a different key (to avoid accidental double-taps, etc).

How can I reverse the order of the question and answer?

Because changing the direction of cards makes them easier or harder, and Anki chooses the optimum time to review cards based on their easiness, switching direction as you review without tracking the intervals separately would lead to sub-optimal scheduling times. Instead, Anki lets you create two sets of cards, one to review in each direction. You can do this when you add cards (click the button in the top right of the add cards dialog), or you can add 'reverse' cards later by selecting a bunch of cards in the card browser, and choosing Actions > Generate Cards.

Why is Anki only showing me half the cards?

See KeyTermsAndConcepts#DelayedCards

How can I change what's shown on the front or the back of the cards?

1. Settings > Deck Properties > Edit

2. Click the Card Templates tab.
3. Change the question and answer format.

See ModelProperties#CardTemplates for more information.

Can I hide certain fields or show them later as a hint?

Yes. One option is to simply leave the field off the card, and you can see it by using edit>edit current. Another way is to set the field colour in Settings>Deck Properties to the same colour as the background, so it will be invisible until you select the text. A third way is to use a plugin on File>Download>Shared Plugin that allows you to show another field with a key press.

I won't be able to use Anki for some time. Can I pause/freeze the scheduler?

If you take a break from using Anki for a few days, it can be quite demotivating to be faced with a large number of cards to review upon your return. It is very natural to want to pause the scheduler, so that you come back to find Anki in the same state as you left it. However, a pause feature would actually do more harm than good, as while it's easy to pause a computer program, it's impossible to pause human memory.

Consider taking a week long break, pausing the scheduler just before you leave and un-pausing just after you come back. Since the progress of all cards has been "frozen" for a week, a delay is applied to every card in the deck. In order to avoid catching up on the work you would have otherwise done during that time, you're increasing the chances of forgetting cards for every single card in the deck. Not a great tradeoff.

Anki schedules cards for review close to the time it thinks you will forget them. If you come back from a vacation and find there are 200 cards to review, Anki is telling you that those 200 cards need to be reviewed soon or you'll forget them. There is no way around this - the cards need to be studied or you'll forget. The best thing you can do is put on some good music and get stuck into the reviews, motivated by the knowledge that your hard work will pay off in the future.

Note there is a 'postpone' plugin available that reschedules the due cards over a specified number of days. It allows you to divide a large number of cards up over a period of days to work through, but you can accomplish the same thing by simply setting a quota of cards to study each day and studying them.

Anki works best if you can use it for a short period of time every day. Taking breaks means that you will inevitably have to do extra work when you return. The following tips can help you use Anki effectively:

1. Don’t add too much material at once. Studying a large number of new cards in one go creates spikes in the due cards graph. Anki sets the maximum number of new cards per day to 20. You're free to change this limit, but bear in mind that the more cards you do per day, the more reviews you'll have to do in the short term.
2. Consider doing no new cards in the week prior to your vacation, and only keeping up with your scheduled reviews.
3. Try to take Anki with you when you go away. Anki can be used on portable devices such as iPhones, PDAs, mobile phones etc.

This issue has been talked about many times on the forums already. Please read those threads instead of starting yet another discussion on the issue.

• http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=9982#p9982

• http://groups.google.com/group/ankisrs/browse_thread/thread/886c3c64a8238660

• http://groups.google.com/group/ankisrs/browse_thread/thread/3043f479c0fd827

• http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=1338&p=1

Can I show a card's tags when reviewing?

1. Settings > Deck Properties > Edit

2. Click the Card Templates tab
3. Edit the question or answer format, and add one of the following.
%(tags)s
displays user tags
%(modelTags)s
displays the model tags
%(cardModel)s
displays the card model name

Can I customize the background colour or next interval font?

Use Settings>Fonts & Colours to customize the fonts, colours and background of cards.

Other parts of the Anki interface use your system settings for colours and fonts. You can customize the colours and fonts for all programs, and Anki will inherit those settings.

If you want to force Anki to use different settings to other applications:

1. Choose Settings > Plugins > Open Plugin Folder

2. Go up on level. You'll see a few folders and a 'config.db'.
3. Create a new text file called 'style.css'. Edit it as follows.

To change the background to a light blue (including study options screen/etc):

#mainText, #mainTextFrame, #welcomeText { background: #ccccff }

The colours are standard HTML colours

To make the next interval area bigger:

#easeLabel1, #easeLabel2, #easeLabel3, #easeLabel4 { font-size: 20px; }

To change the font of the 'type in the answer' area:

#typeAnswerField { font-family: arial; font-size: 40px; }

Managing your deck

Help! I can't open my deck

If you can't open your deck, the following things are possible:

Database is corrupt

• You move or renamed the deck while Anki was running
• Your hard drive or USB stick has errors on it
• You're using Linux and an older version of sqlite that is not properly locking the deck.

You'll need to restore from backup. Anki keeps automatic backups every time you open the deck, and if you are using the synchronization features, there'll be an online copy too. Either download the online copy with File>Download>Personal Deck, or use Settings>Preferences>Saving>Open backup folder.

If the damage to the file is small, it may be possible to manually recover most of your data, but this should be used as a last resort. In most cases restoring from the last backup is the best approach.

Upgrading failed

• You upgraded to a newer version of Anki and the automatic upgrade did not go smoothly

This is usually an easy fix - please post about in on the forum and include the error message.

• You're trying to open an old deck created with Anki < 0.4.x.

You need to download Anki 0.9.7.8, open the deck with that, and then open the deck with the latest version. You can install 0.9.7.8 in a different directory and use it just for upgrade purposes.

Other

• Your disk is full
• The files are read only

In this case, free up space or store the files in a writable location.

Please note that while Anki takes regular backups, it's a very good idea to make your own backups in case of emergency. Also, your audio and pictures are not backed up, so you need to take your own backups of them.

I reset the progress of my cards, but Anki is not showing me them!

By default, Anki shows a maximum of 20 new cards per day. If you have already studied that many cards, your reset cards will not be shown until the next day. You can cause them to be shown immediately by clicking 'learn more'.

One big deck or lots of little decks? One tag at a time or many?

Separate decks work best for dividing your knowledge into broad categories. For example, you may have a deck for studying "Japanese", another for "German", and another for "Computers". Tags are more appropriate for finer-grained categorization: "food", "lesson10", etc. You can use the deck browser to switch between decks, and Settings>Active Tags to change which tagged cards are shown.

Many people prefer to study one broad category at once - for example, only German, then only computers. Whether you choose to do this or keep everything in one deck is up to you, and is a matter of personal preference.

However, it's recommended that you don't try to study subcategories like "food" one by one. Switching between small groups of cards is fiddly and wastes time that you could be using to study. It also carries the risk of forgetting to activate certain categories. But most importantly, it leads to sub-optimal memories. If you know you are studying "food" or "lesson10", it's much easier for your brain to guess the meaning of items, as you have context to work with. By making it easier on yourself, it makes it more likely you won't be able to recall the words when the context is removed.

How can I merge or split decks?

Use File>Import to import another deck into the current deck. Use File>Export to export your deck to a different file. You can use the 'limit to tags' option to export only part of your deck to the other file.

Media

Anki is renaming my media!

When you add media to Anki, it takes a copy of it, renames it to a series of numbers and letters, and puts it in the deck's media directory. It does this for a number of reasons.

• The original names are not necessarily portable. Characters like /, \, and : may work on some systems but not others.
• Third party software is not always unicode aware. Python's win32 subprocess module depends on the user having properly set 'encoding for non-unicode aware programs', for example. If they don't, things will break.
• Checksums make it easy to check if the files are damaged, and easy to check for duplicates, even if they have a different name.

Anki records the original filename in the deck when you add files. In the future, there will be a media browser that allows you to search for files for a given file name, edit files in an external program, etc.

Since Anki always copies your files on add, never moves them, your originally named file still exists.

The last part of my audio files are not being played!

Anki uses mplayer on Linux and Windows to play audio files. The default mp3 player uses libmad, which has troubles with some audio files. To use a different encoder, edit ~/.mplayer/config and add a line:

ac=mp3,

If you're on Windows, you'll probably find the file in the \Program Files\Anki directory.

If you still have problems, consider installing a different version of mplayer. You can get it here: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html

Why isn't Anki exporting my media?

Anki will only copy media files it knows about. If you have added media by clicking on the 'add picture' or 'add sound' button, then everything should work out of the box - but if you have manually added media by typing in [sound:] tags yourself, you need to run Tools>Advanced>Check Media DB.

Anki is not playing my audio!

If you're on Linux, make sure you have installed mplayer. On a Mac, audio requires OSX10.4+.

Syncing

Anki tells me my clock is wrong.

Syncing requires your clock to be set correctly - if it's not, cards would be scheduled for the wrong time. If your clock looks like it's set to the correct time, then chances are your timezone or daylight savings setting is set incorrectly. It is not possible for Anki to work around problems with the clock - the clock must be set to the correct time. If you're using XP: 1) double-click the time in the taskbar ... the Date and Time Properties dialog should appear 2) select the "Time Zone" tab 3) locate the correct timezone for your location in the drop-down box. 4) hit the Apply button (also recommended but not absolutely required) 5) click on the Internet Time tab (in the same dialog box) 6) make sure "Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server" is ticked. 7) click "Update Now" 8) click Ok to close the window

I'm behind a proxy, how can I sync or download decks?

Settings>Preferences>Network

How can I sync audio and pictures?

You can keep your media synced with a service called DropBox. Their service is free for basic use. Head to http://www.getdropbox.com/ to get it.

Note that if you keep your Anki deck inside your drop box, be careful not to open it from more than one location at once.

Using Anki on the move

Can I run Anki from a flashdrive?

Sure. Do it like this:

1. Install Anki.

2. Copy and paste the Anki directory were the program is installed (usually "C:\Program Files\Anki") to the root of your USB stick, so you have a directory like e:\Anki

3. Go to Start->Run, type "notepad," and press enter. Type:

cd \anki
anki.exe -c ankiconfig

Save the file as a .bat file in the root directory of your USB stick, eg e:\anki.bat

4. To run Anki from the USB stick, open the USB stick and double click on the .bat file.

Can I run Anki from a cell phone?

Yes. For more details please see Study Online section on Anki web site and click on 'Review (other)'.

Can I run Anki on a portable device?

iPod touches, iPhones, Zauruses and Nokia internet tablets are pretty well supported. There is experimental support for Windows Mobile devices, but it needs work and nobody has volunteered. The Nintendo DS and Sony PSP are too limited to support running Anki natively, but you can access the Anki website from their browsers. DS users may like to investigate http://digital-haze.net/ndsrs.php

See the download page of the Anki website for more information.

Plugins

Where can I get plugins?

File>Download>Shared Plugin

I downloaded a plugin, but I don't know how to use it.

Some plugins contain instructions inside them. Use Settings>Plugins>Open Plugins Dir, then open <your_plugin_name>.py in a text editor. You may also need to edit the plugin if it contains options in it. Don't worry if you make a mistake and Anki gives an error on next startup - you can delete the plugin or download it again.

Japanese

How can I use Japanese with Anki?

As of Anki 0.9.9.8.2, Japanese-specific features have been moved into a separate plugin. Please see JapaneseSupport.

How to enable automatic reading generation ?

If you have installed JapaneseSupport, and are using the Japanese model, it should work automatically. The standard model sets the following:

• Model tag: Japanese
• The field with kanji must be called: Expression
• The field the reading will go into: Reading

Note that the reading is not generated until you change focus to another field, or add the card. If you have changed the name of your fields, you will need to update the plugin.

Automatic reading generation will not work on PowerPC Macs.

Chinese

How can I enable Chinese support?

File>Download>Shared Plugin and install either Basic Chinese Support and/or the Mandarin toolkit.

Why does Anki show me many readings for hanzi?

The default reading generation is based on the unihan DB. If you install the Mandarin toolkit, better readings will be produced.

LaTeX

LaTeX doesn't work

LaTeX is very large, so it's not included with Anki. You need to install it separately, using a distribution like MiKTeX (Windows) or MacTex (OSX). If you don't install the full package, make sure at least the commands 'latex' and 'dvipng' are installed.

I get an error when trying to use some (math-related) LaTeX commands

You need to include extra packages like 'amsmath' to use certain packages. There is a plugin that lets you add custom LaTeX packages.

Linux

I can't input foreign languages! Scim doesn't work!

Some distros ship a scim that does not talk to Qt4 apps by default. You can try:

• making sure your locale is UTF8
• switching to a Japanese locale (or your target language)
• installing scim-bridge-client-qt4
• using the old style XIM instead, by making sure things like XMODIFIERS are defined.
• using a different input method like uim

Contributing

How do I translate Anki's interface?

Please see Translating.

How can I help with documentation?

This page, and the other pages on this wiki are editable by anyone. Please change and add anything you feel is appropriate.

Where can I get the latest development code?

See the download page.

Technical questions

What spaced repetition algorithm does Anki use?

Anki was originally based on the SuperMemo SM5 algorithm. However, Anki's default behaviour of revealing the next interval before answering a card revealed some fundamental problems with the SM5 algorithm. The key difference between SM2 and later revisions of the algorithm is this:

• SM2 uses your performance on a card to determine the next time to schedule that card
• SM3+ use your performance on a card to determine the next time to schedule that card, and similar cards

The latter approach promises to choose more accurate intervals by factoring in not just a single card's performance, but the performance as a group. If you are very consistent in your studies and all cards are of a very similar difficulty, this approach can work quite well. However, once inconsistencies are introduced into the equation (cards of varying difficulty, not studying at the same time every day), SM3+ is more prone to incorrect guesses at the next interval - resulting in cards being scheduled too often or too far in the future.

Furthermore, as SM3+ dynamically adjusts the "optimum factors" table, a situation can often arise where answering "hard" on a card can result in a longer interval than answering "easy" would give. The next times are hidden from you in SuperMemo so the user is never aware of this.

After evaluating the alternatives, the Anki author decided that near-optimum intervals yielded by an SM2 derivative are better than trying to obtain optimum intervals at the risk of incorrect guesses. An SM2 approach is predictable and intuitive to end users, whereas an SM3+ approach hides the details from the user and requires users to trust the system (even when the system may make mistakes in the scheduling).

Anki's algorithm is based on SM2, but differs from it in some respects.

• SM2 defines an initial interval of 1 day then 6 days. With Anki, you have the choice of 1, 3-5 and 7-9 days depending on your initial answer. After that, the intervals are increased in largely the same way. Anki understands that it can be necessary to see a new card a number of times before you're able to memorize it, and those initial 'failures' don't mean you need to be 'punished' by being shown the failed card many times over the course of a few days. Performance during the learning stage does not reflect performance in the retaining stage.
• Anki uses 4 choices for answering, not 6. There is only one 'fail' choice, not 3. The reason for this is that failure comprises a small amount of total reviews, and thus adjusting a card's ease can be sufficiently done by simply varying the positive answers.
• Answering cards later than scheduled will be factored into the next interval calculation, so you receive a boost to cards that you were late in answering but still remembered.
• SM2 does not define a specific order to show the cards in. Anki has support for different priorities, and the user can choose the order that cards due for review are displayed in. The default order shows oldest cards first, which makes the first half of a review session easier and reduces the chances of a user falling behind in their reviews and becoming demotivated.
• Like SM2, Anki's failure button resets the card interval by default. But the user can choose to make the card take some steps back rather than being reset completely. Also, you can elect to review failed mature cards on a different day, instead of the same day.

• Learning new material is integrated into the review process. Failing cards results in them being presented again for review within 10 minutes by default, instead of all at the end like SuperMemo's final drill option. There is also an option to keep failed cards to the end.

• 'Remembered easily' not only increments the ease factor, but adds an extra bonus to the current interval calculation. Thus, answering 'remembered easily' is a little more aggressive than the standard SM2 algorithm.

• Successive failures while cards are 'young' (under 21 days) do not result in further decreases to the card's ease. A common complaint with the standard SM algorithms is that repeated failings of a card cause the card to get stuck in "low interval hell". In Anki, the initial acquisition process does not influence a card's ease as much as it does in SuperMemo.

• Ease factors start off at 2.5 for the very first new card, but subsequent new cards are based on the average ease factor of the deck. Thus in a deck where the average easiness is very low, new cards will start out with more conservative intervals. Note that once a new card has been answered once, future scheduling is independent of other cards and thus its progress is predictable, unlike SM3+.